


this is just how we were taught to love

by AnotherAverageAuthor



Category: Grey's Anatomy, Station 19 (TV)
Genre: Gen, also carina isn't technically in it, big thicc character study, but maya thinks about her a lot, it's only sorta maya and jack, litrally nothing productive happens it's just being sad for like 3000 words, relationship tag is only gen cause i don't really know what to characterise it as, teen for a language warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27160120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherAverageAuthor/pseuds/AnotherAverageAuthor
Summary: It had felt like months since Carina had told her that she wasn’t in the habit of getting involved in other people’s trauma. Just like now, her response had come instinctively, Maya had jumped to correct her; she wasn’t rude, she was broken. It was a natural reaction, almost like she was reaching to finish a sentence that nobody had started.Maya had resented herself for coming off as weak in that moment. She wasn’t traumatised and she didn’t need fixing. She wasn’t broken.~~~pretty much just the time between maya and jack sleeping together and maya getting back to the apartment.
Relationships: Maya Bishop/Carina DeLuca, Maya Bishop/Jack Gibson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	this is just how we were taught to love

**Author's Note:**

> hi please ignore how messy this ended up being thank you enjoy

Maya Bishop had always maintained a strong belief that the captain’s bunk was colder than the others.

Technically, the only thing that made it any different from the rest of the rooms in the station was the ever-so-slightly bigger bed, but she’d never been able to shake the feeling of impersonality that hung in the dusty air. 

It was private, so it never got dirty from people traipsing in and out, she’d never gotten around to hanging anything of her own on the walls and the department-issued raincoat that was folded on her desk hadn’t been moved in months. Even the coffee cup on the bedside table was clean. If it weren’t for the piles of clothes thrown haphazardly across the floor, it would look like she’d never even stepped through the door.

Usually, Maya didn’t care. When she wasn’t fighting actual fires, she was putting out whatever spot fires sprung up between her team, rushing to make sure the entire station wasn’t going to collapse around her. If she used the bunk, it was for power naps between meetings or calls or meals.

But now? She didn’t know if she would ever sleep in this bed again.

“So…”

Not only was the room impersonal, but it was also just physically cold. The heating system, for whatever reason, didn’t extend to her room and since she never used it, Maya hadn't been inclined to get it fixed.

She didn’t know what was going through Jack’s mind, but his arms were firmly crossed over his bare chest in almost exactly the same way as hers, so that had to at least mean that he was cold as well. She could feel goosebumps spanning the shoulder that was rubbing against her and if she had any humanity left, she would reach down and grab the blanket, if not for the sake of retaining some of the warmth they'd worked for, then to at least cover up a little beyond the thin sheet over their legs.

As much as they both clearly wanted it, neither of them could do anything other than lay there and stare at the ceiling, thinking about whatever shit had led to them both ending up in her office at the same time. Maya had half a mind to blame Avery; if he hadn’t gotten shot, Jack wouldn’t have felt the need to come in and tell her about it. Maybe if Warren had called her and let her know beforehand like protocol dictated he do, she could’ve told Jack to leave before he could corner her about Andy. Part of her tried to blame Jack for sticking around, but her mind couldn’t stop drifting unwittingly, unwillingly, to Carina.

Realising too late that Jack had spoken, Maya tried to reply, but her voice came out far quieter than she had hoped. “Yeah.”

She hadn’t wanted to get involved with Jack again. She’d broken up with him for good, fully believing that they simply just weren’t right for each other. When she’d told Carina that she was leaving to go for a run, she hadn’t been lying, but her run had a pattern she couldn’t dictate and before she could even realise it, she had been back at the station. Before she could realise it, she was reaching for him, grabbing at something concrete, a way to outsource the anger that burned in her muscles that she could _really_ control every violent second of.

“I guess I am broken.”

She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but she needed to fill the silence. The void that grew steadily between the two of them, mercilessly swallowing any ounce of passion or lust that had ever connected them at one point or another was too great to ignore.

It had felt like years since Carina had told her that she wasn’t in the habit of getting involved in other people’s trauma. Just like now, her response had come instinctively, Maya had jumped to correct her; she wasn’t rude, she was broken. It was a natural reaction, almost like she was reaching to finish a sentence that nobody had started.

Maya had resented herself for coming off as weak in that moment. She wasn’t traumatised and she didn’t need fixing. She wasn’t broken. She couldn’t be, not when being broken implied that something had changed somewhere along the line to make her the mess that she was, not when she’d been ruined from day one.

But lying next to Jack, her entire body buzzing with some sick combination of adrenaline and guilt, she was starting to realise how comforting being broken could be. 

She was so tired of running around, trying to find some solution to a problem that to everyone else was very clearly just the Maya Bishop way, of throwing bandaids on cuts that definitely needed stitches and insisting on too many temporary solutions that involved getting naked with the least appropriate person within a hundred-mile radius.

She was fed up with working away a third of her life looking for an answer to a question she couldn’t even articulate, with being terrified of the thought of coming home anything other than a winner that it took Jack reminding her just how inherently fucked up he thought she was to realise it wasn’t working. It took throwing herself at the boyfriend that she had broken up with months previously to remember that she was still _so_ far away from being worthy, that maybe she could settle for calling herself broken.

Especially if the people she’d tried to hide it from the most had no intention of believing otherwise.

“I guess we both are.”

She knew that Jack had to be going through his own crap, especially since he probably still blamed himself for Vasquez. Fuck, Maya still wasn’t entirely sure Vasquez hadn’t been _her_ fault, but for the second time since he’d stopped by her office, she had no instinct to reach out, no mind to repair whatever new fault had stopped her from asking if he was alright, had made her utterly incapable of empathy

Had Dr Lewis been right? Had she been running for so long that it was finally driving her to insanity? Or was this all part of accepting her brokenness like a crown of thorns shoved onto her head by the same man she’d just fucked?

Jack shifted slightly next to her, the rustling of the bedsheets disturbing the oppressive silence that they’d become devoured by once again. Through the corner of her eye, she could see him starting to sit up.

“I should go,” he muttered, his voice hoarse which Maya hoped was from lack of use more than anything else, however unlikely that was.

She didn’t reply, she knew she didn’t need to. Jack understood the situation just fine without her help. Plus, he looked almost as guilty as she felt, he wouldn’t say a word.

He tried to clamber over her, carefully avoiding eye contact as though she was Medusa, but Maya didn’t blame him. Irreversibly turning to stone was one of the tamer things she could imagine happening if he were to look at _her_ again the way he had that afternoon, closely followed by spontaneously combusting, and melting like the witch from the Wizard of Oz.

Not because she was in love with him, again, that ship had long sailed, but more because of the unexplainable twisting motion her stomach did every time she thought about how much more she preferred…

How much more she enjoyed the sex with Carina.

Successfully free from the bedsheets, Jack threw on his shirt and jeans as quickly and as silently as he could and, after checking that the coast was clear, disappeared from the bunk without another word, leaving the bed even colder than it had been before.

No part of her was pleased with her choice. Even now, after Jack had left the room, Maya couldn’t stop entertaining the fantasies that played in her mind over and over - slamming the door in his face, slamming her fist into his face, either worked just fine. Picturing the exact feeling of incredulity that would have come with that moment filled her with a balloon of brief and mild elation that was all too easily popped by her remembering of Vasquez. 

She shouldn’t stoop to his level. The man was dead, and whether it had been her fault or a flaw of his own, she couldn’t forget how severely his mistakes had shaken the station’s morale.

Having been still for too long, restless energy started to creep up on her again and the inevitable urge to get up and run overtook her for the second time that day. She tried in vain to stuff it down, remembering what had happened the last time she decided to go running, but like a wildfire engulfing miles of dead brush, the impulse was difficult to control.

Knowing this and the fact that she couldn’t stay hidden in the bunk forever, Maya resigned herself to getting up and she threw back the sheet Jack had dropped and got up from the bed. As she took her sweet time getting dressed, her head was mercifully empty. No thoughts of the station or codes, nothing of the growing number of hose malfunctionings, no budget files, nothing at all. It was the most peace she’d had in weeks, and she tried to ignore the fact that it was yet another one of the things her occurrence with Jack had apparently taught her to do.

Leaving the bed unmade, Maya exited the bunk and pushed open the door to her office, the closed blinds clattering against the glass. When she emerged into the entrance to the station, she caught the eyes of Vic, who was watching her attentively from behind the front desk. Maya wasn’t sure what she was still doing here considering that the shift had ended hours ago, but from the number of people she’d run into that afternoon, she really shouldn’t have been surprised.

Seeming to read her mind, Vic straightened up in her chair. “I left my water bottle behind and the phone rang on the way out.” It was a bluff that Vic had to know Maya could see right through, the phone could easily be heard from the bunk, but that wasn’t what Maya was worried about.

Vic strongly believed that she could correctly read anyone in the station, and, whether it was by chance or an actual intuitive superpower, she was usually right. If the way she watched Maya awkwardly shift her weight between her feet was any indication, she had seen Jack leave only a few minutes before and had stuck around to see if Maya would follow, easily piecing things together. She could only hope she’d have the decency to keep it to herself.

“You need a ride?” Before Maya could ask how she’d known she hadn’t driven to the station, Vic cleared her throat, standing up. “Your car wasn’t in the parking lot. Plus, you’re all sweaty.”

Maya held back on answering and Vic's eyes grew narrow, fixing on her with an intense scrutinisation that, to Maya, confirmed she knew exactly what she was talking about.

“I’m good, thank you though.”

“Are you sure? It’s cold outside.”

Maya nodded, putting every ounce of effort she had left into making sure she didn’t drop her eyes. Vic clearly didn’t believe her because she took a few careful steps around the desk until Maya could see her fully, keys in one hand and water bottle in the other.

“Are you alright?” She asked pointedly, her voice low, clearly trying to avoid being overheard by the rest of the station. Maya ignored her. “Just because Jack was in a hurry to get out and you look like someone just died-”

“Could you leave it alone?”

She hadn’t meant to sound so aggressive, but for whatever reason, the look of hurt that crossed ever so briefly over Vic’s face filled Maya with a feeling of accomplishment that would have been enjoyable if it weren’t dragged down by guilt.

“Sorry,” Vic muttered, her voice taking on a genuinely apologetic note that Maya didn’t care for. “I just noticed you’ve been kind of off lately.”

“You and the rest of the world, apparently.”

She knew she wasn’t being fair, Vic hadn’t done anything other than check up on her and she had no way of knowing what was going on with her parents and her girlfriend, but no part of Maya wanted her sympathy. She didn’t deserve it, not really, but if people were going to keep pushing and pulling her, stretching the world until they could force their words to look like the truth, then she couldn’t be expected to take it lying down.

Before Vic could reply, Maya turned and bolted for the exit, not caring that she would surely only be putting the finishing touches on the theory Vic was formulating. Even as she called after her, Maya refused to turn around, knowing that if she did, Vic would easily be able to get her to talk and she just didn’t have the energy for that conversation.

When she opened the door, she was immediately swept by the regular, bracing winds of a Seattle fall that invaded the holes in her knit sweater and blew up the dust that had collected in the part of her brain that was supposed to be making her feel alive.

With her new and invigorating clarity, she started to walk, tuning out the noise of the cars passing and choosing instead to focus on the beat her shoes made on the pavement, a comforting one-two that was close enough to the way running sounded to distract her from the debilitating guilt that followed her like a dark shadow. She kept her head low, knowing that if Vic had been telling the truth and really was only picking up her water bottle, Maya would see her truck amongst the other cars on the road any minute.

She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going, but Maya had enough experience in the business of stepping out onto the street with nowhere to be to know that her feet would take her home, wherever that ended up being that afternoon.

Ever since the day she’d walked twenty miles with no phone and no direction, her body had developed its own instinct to know exactly where it was in space and time at all moments. If she’d been somewhere before, she could get there again, no map, no GPS. It was a pretty handy skill to have, especially as a firefighter, and she had her father to credit for that.

Her father was responsible for so many of the things that she cherished; her drive, her dedication. He’d made her a fighter, a captain, and an adversary of failure.

And again, like a fly drawn to honey, Maya was forced to push back against the thoughts of Carina that continued to overtake her mind.

As much as she hated to believe it, as much as it made her want to scream and throw things and punch walls like she was a dumb teenager getting her heart broken for the very first time again, the only thing that had ever gotten close to pulling her out of the rut she’d been born into was Carina.

The only thing that could compare to the blood and the tears of track victories, the confessions of brokenness that still didn’t quite sit right and the endless fantasies of cloud-beds and dying was the woman that had brought into question the motives of the man who’d given Maya everything.

She’d been lost at how to react, thrown into the deep end of a pool that didn’t have a shallow one and everywhere she turned, the water only grew deeper. With no place to go and no clear path, Maya had done what she did best; she’d trusted her body, her instinct and natural sense of direction to lead her home.

When home had become clearly synonymous with her father, she’d accepted it, allowing her conscience to dictate Carina as the villain. Her instinct had never failed before, why should she stop trusting it now?

_Why should she stop trusting it when it was all she had left?_

It wasn’t like this was the first time she’d thrown someone out the second they’d made her feel anything less than euphoric; if anything, she was famous for her distaste for monogamy. Hell, she’d given Jack the exact same treatment. She was used to spending a night with some girl or some guy and leaving the next morning without promising to call back, moving onto the next person with no care about who she left behind. Permanent wasn’t even a word in her vocabulary. 

Jack hadn’t lasted no matter how much he may have wanted to, it felt like she couldn’t stop fighting with Andy, even the temporary alliance she’d made with Mason had fizzled out before she could stop it. Cutting Carina off should have been a piece of cake.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t and nothing Maya could come up with would force her out of her mind, nothing could separate her from a situation that she really had nothing to do with, that she couldn’t have changed no matter how hard she seemed to want to try.

Because Carina wasn’t somebody you could toss away without a second glance. From the moment they’d met, Maya couldn’t stop staring because Dr DeLuca had been a gorgeous mystery with a smile you only saw in movies and the kind of charm that lured in the weak of heart and Maya, a lone traveller with a heart held together by duct tape, had stood no chance.

Carina cared and checked in and maybe it was just the doctor in her but it had reduced Maya to nothing more than a simple, mushy girlfriend who didn’t have doctor instincts or apparently even any empathy at all. The only things she’d had to give in the uncharted territories that were dating were a moderately spicy bolognese sauce and the fingers of someone with too much time on their hands in college, which had both somehow appealed to the Italian enough to keep her coming back, even before Maya had realised it was what she had wanted.

She turned into the street her apartment building was on, shocked that it had come around so quickly. Either she’d been taking the long route to the station in the morning for too long to remember how short the alternative was, or she’d yet again completely zoned out for the entire trip.

It had grown dark at some point and only the last remaining dregs of sunlight could make their way between the buildings, but that was fine by her. The later it was, the more unlikely she’d meet her landlord on the way up. Or the sleazy downstairs neighbour that had been hinting at a threesome for months. He’d missed his chance by now, not that she’d ever take him up on the offer.

Carina had been what she wanted, but now, in the cheap fluorescent light of the building’s entrance, Maya could see just how important it was to let her go. Her last-ditch effort with Jack to clear her mind of her father or her mother or her stupid charity case of an existence had failed, and so the last thing she had left to try was ridding herself of the only person who could make her feel anything, good or bad.

Maya made herself a deal.

She would go upstairs and try to sleep - even if she knew it wouldn’t happen - which would hopefully give her some time to think about what she would say to Carina when she saw her again. That way, when that time came, she could be sure that she was acting for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> how is the new season you ask???? all i can say is who gave travis permission and where can i send them my money
> 
> this definitely will not be my last attempt at writing station 19, i spent way too much time on this and by the time i got to the end i hated it so much omg so i want to actually make something i'm proud of
> 
> i'm over on tumblr at javids-jelly, please feel free to comment or shoot us a message :)
> 
> lots of love and appreciation and stay safe my friends


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